tag: DFT

It wasn't that many years ago that [getkc id="30" comment="emulation"] was an expensive tool available to only a few, but it has since become indispensable for a growing number of companies. One obvious reason is the growing size of designs and the inability of [getkc id="11" kc_name="simulation"] to keep up. But emulation also has been going through a number of transformations that have made i... » read more

The amount of electronic content in passenger cars continues to grow rapidly, driven mainly by the integration of various advanced safety features. The industry’s move towards fully autonomous vehicles promises to even further increase the number of these safety features and consequentially, the electronic content required in each vehicle.
Recent reports indicate that hundreds of semicondu... » read more

The test time for digital circuit blocks in ICs has greatly decreased in the last 20 years, thanks to scan-based design-for-test (DFT), automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) tools, and scan compression. These technologies have greatly reduced the number of test vectors applied by automatic test equipment (ATE) while maximizing the coverage of a wide range of defect types.
But for analog c... » read more

Test always has been a delicate balance between cost and quality, but there are several changes happening in the industry that might cause a significant alteration in strategy.
Part one of this two part series about [getkc id="47" comment="Design for Test (DFT)"] looked at changes in areas such as automotive, where built in self-test is becoming a mandated part of the design process. This co... » read more

Gaps are showing up in test flows as chipmakers add more analog content and push into more safety-critical applications, exposing more points at which designs need to be tested as well as weaknesses in current tools and methodologies.
The cornerstone of the [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"], and connected devices such as self-driving cars, is a heavy reliance on [getkc id="187" kc_name="sensors"... » read more

[getperson id="11145" comment="Jack Harding"], president and CEO of [getentity id="22242" e_name="eSilicon"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about consolidation, business relationships, what it will take to survive in the IoT age, and how to better optimize chips. What follows are excerpts of that conversation.
SE: We’ve been looking at consolidation for a while and all th... » read more

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a German fable about a rat catcher who used his magic pipe to lure away rats. When he was not paid by the town, he used his pipe to lure away all of the town's children. I am not suggesting that exactly the same is true for the semiconductor industry and having not paid [getkc id="7" kc_name="EDA"], but I do not think they have paid enough and they will now have to ... » read more

Mention Design for Test (DFT) and scan chains come to mind, but there is much more to it than that—and the rules of the game are changing.
New application areas such as automotive may breathe new life into built-in self-test (BIST) solutions, which could also be used for manufacturing test. So could DFT as we know it be a thing of the past? Or will it continue to have a role to play?
Te... » read more

What if all the DFT verification on your next big chip could be completed before tape-out? This “shift-left” of DFT verification would eliminate the need for shortcuts in verification and allow for more types of verification. The benefits of faster and earlier DFT verification include higher confidence in the “golden” RTL, eliminating DFT from the critical path of tape-out, and more pre... » read more

The industry and users have a love/hate relationship with UVM. It has quickly risen to become the most used verification methodology and yet at the same time it is seen as being overly complex, unwieldy and difficult to learn. The third day of DAC gets started with breakfast with Accellera to discuss UVM and what we can expect to see in the next 5 years. The discussion was led by Tom Alsop, pri... » read more